MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN BAYELSA STATE

In December 2013, I was contacted by an intimate friend and a course mate to accompany him on a journey to somewhere.

To where? To Gbaran Kingdom, after Amazoma in Bayelsa State.

To do what? My friend's elder brother who was an active PDP member and also worked at Wadata Plaza won a contract from Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This was to construct a hospital for the people in the targeted Locality and he empowered his younger brother who is my friend as a contractor.

What was my role? I was told by my friend to work with him as Site Manager. At this time, my school was already on strike and house was bored.

What happened at Gbaran Kingdom? Getting to the village after travelling with a speed boat from Amazoma and used more than 2 hours on the water, we finally got to our destination with our engineers. We were warmly welcomed and offered two rooms in one of the Chief's house.

The following day, I discovered that Ex-militants and potential militants were everywhere in the community. I decided to mingle and giggle with them, on street level, I made friends and dined with those guys.

My friend that was contractor did not know how to roll with the street, he then preferred travelling two hours everyday to Yenagua and sleep in Hotels. He slept with me in Gbaran for only three days out of a month used in the community.

We brought 415 bags of Cement with Ship, the community youths collected #500 for unloading each of the bag of cement from the ship. We also brought some bags of Granite stones with Iron rods of different type and length, also, some other construction materials.

My friend as Contractor also needed to settle different groups of people in the community with thousands of Naira.

The engineers started moulding blocks and in about three to four days under my supervision, we've had thousands of block to start the project.

Guess what? We were taking to a site to construct the building, some groups of people later came that the land belonged to their family and we should not dare build anything there.

After that place, we were taken to another 10 different places and we met the same fate as the first place. Some places we have paid for clearing before some men would pop up like pop corns and threatened to kill us if we dare continue on the land.

After all the efforts to settle their differences failed, we were then taken to a piece of land that belonged to the government Primary school in the community. The following day, we started making the foundation hoping that nobody would disturb since the land belonged to government.

But we were surprised in the third day to see some men coming from Port Harcourt and Yenagua to stop the work. In fact, after knowing that the contractor was not around, they were looking for me as Site Manager, if not for someone that convinced them that the site manager was just a small boy, maybe they could have kidnapped me.

My friend the contractor went to the Governor and we were told by Governor that Soldiers would come to protect us while working in the day, they would leave at night, I was the first person to oppose that generosity because nobody would be there to stand for us if Soldiers would leave in the night.

The Contractor did not even come to that community for like two weeks before I left, I was the last person to leave after a month and a day.

Now, the project was abandoned, I heard now that about 310 cements that were left behind were already taken by individuals. The granite, iron rods and other construction materials that we bought for the purpose were also shared. The community remains without hospital, they travel through three communities before getting access to health care.

Up till today, I still find it difficult to believe all I saw and experienced. I thought of South West, if we have had the luck to get such a project in my village, the Contractor and his entourage would be treated like a king, and the youths of the village would even volunteer to have the work done.

With this experience of mine, can somebody still blame Goodluck Jonathan for not doing things in his State?

Now you know, how someone like Jonathan can come from such a place without being influenced by such characters. He was a gift to Nigeria, yet corruption succeeded. He was not street smart. Politics requires intellect and street-smartness.

^^ huh?

Op didn't they know it was a hospital that was to be built..

unbelievable that these same people will claim government is not doing anything and want to control their resources.
It is evident that even if they are given control if the oil, they kill themselves over it and only a few will benefit from it

Firsti blame your English